


every crumb you drop

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [88]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky's total failure to recognize his own massive psychological progress, C-PTSD, Hydra did a number on Bucky, M/M, Pierce died too quick, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fic, sex that isn't about sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:03:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd been stupid and arrogant, thought because he'd lived through <i>some</i> shit and seen others go through worse that he had any fucking idea, and he'd been wrong. He'd been so, so <i>fucking</i> wrong. But that stupid, young, soft, self-assured idiot - </p>
<p>No. Not him. Not all of him, the pieces of him, maybe, because most of him's <i>dead</i>, couldn't cut it - but those pieces of him and what he thought and what he knew and what he believed, they're all still tangled up in fucking everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every crumb you drop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adsartha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adsartha/gifts).



> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> On a prompt from Adsartha.

Most of the things he craves, he can't admit to. 

So many of them he never even fucking wanted before Italy, Austria, the War. (If he remembers right. If the memories are real.) So much that if you'd told him he could he'd've called you an idiot or a liar, because he knew enough, had been through enough and around enough to know that, that was wrong. That those were the last things he'd want. 

Fuck, he'd be insulted that someone thought he could want those things. Or things like them. 

Because he'd been young and stupid and softer than he had any fucking idea, and couldn't imagine what _could_ make someone want to give up. Wholly and completely give up. Give in. 

Had no _fucking idea_ how fucking tired you could get and how eventually pain, _agony_ , it's just another fucking kind of tired, just another thing making you want to say _stop, just stop, I give up._

_I give up._

He'd been stupid and arrogant, thought because he'd lived through _some_ shit and seen others go through worse that he had any fucking idea, and he'd been wrong. He'd been so, so _fucking_ wrong. But that stupid, young, soft, self-assured idiot - 

No. Not him. Not all of him, the pieces of him, maybe, because most of him's _dead_ , couldn't cut it - but those pieces of him and what he thought and what he knew and what he believed, they're all still tangled up in fucking everything. 

Catching like hooks and ripping, unable to see any, any of what he wants as anything _other_ than failure, than surrender, than something poisoning his brain and something he has to fight. Because you're not this, you're not, this is not who you are, this is not what you're _for_ \- the slivers dig themselves into him and that's what they still know. Then there's the fear, and then - 

Fuck, then everything else. Then the boy on the floor who just wants his mother to stop crying and the boy by the bed too many fucking times trying to act like if he can get mad enough, fierce enough, he'll fucking cure diseases he can't even see, he'll bring God to heel; then - 

Then the dog on the floor waiting to get fucking kicked again, the silent brain-dead _mess_ waiting for the next order and _we need you_ and _your work_ and _this is what you're for_ , and every other lie that fucking bastard told. And fuck, there were so many. Twisted up, braided together, built on each other, even fucking thrown against each other, it didn't matter: all built on the core, _this is what you wanted; you chose this._

You can know whatever the fuck you want, in your head. Doesn't matter. The other shit got into you, into your skin, your bones, your blood, your fucking _cells_ , and _God_ it doesn't want to come out. And you can be as fucking bored with it as you like and it still doesn't go away; as tired as you fucking can be, and it's still the same stupid endless fucking _everything_ that won't.

Fucking. 

Go. 

Away. 

_This is what you wanted you chose this this is what you're for -_

There are days he'd take a fucking knife to his brain. Except he's afraid he knows exactly what Hell will be, after all. 

 

It's not like he doesn't fucking know why it was so easy, why that got into him, let the bastard into him, under his skin. Why he swallowed every word - because it was easier because it made sense because he did it to himself.

He has read what seems like every _fucking_ book or paper or fucking transcribed lecture on the human fucking psyche that's ever been written, from bullshit to plausibility. He _knows_ why all of that fucking worked. Like he fucking carved an eye out of himself for just that fucking hook. Because he started started as that boy on that floor, and he chose; because it's what he _decided to be for_ \- 

And this is the lesson: _You_ are for comforting. _You_ are for saving people. _You_ are for protecting what you love, _this is what you're for_. 

The difference is vast, there is _every fucking difference_ between the truth and the lie. And he will never, ever fucking take back the ones he chose, the times that _were_ what he wanted, it's just, it's that every choice and every time, it's just that it broke the lock open and threw the door wide in his head, and they came and _he_ came that _son of a bitch_ came and carved it how they wanted it. 

And now he can't stop. 

Stop. _Stop._

Because not to be needed, not to be needed _for something_ \- is not to be . . . . anything.

_This is what you're for._

And it's fucking insane. And he just wants to stop. Because right now he could stop. 

Wants a mind that isn't strangled by choices in poles, one thing or the other, black or white; a mind that isn't basically a fucking _child_ and will listen, _listen_ when he tries to tell it things. Tries to remember shadows and shades and colours of meaning. 

That being wanted can be better than needed, that you can be needed but _not right now_ , needed but just to be. That you can stop, that you're allowed to fucking lie down and rest. 

That you can say _okay fine it's your fucking turn._ And let go and let someone else pick it up. 

But it is a fucking child and it won't listen, and then it all happens anyway, it happens anyway because he's fucking _broken_ , he just wants a fucking mind that can _let it_ , that knows that he can put the world down before he drops it by falling on his face. 

It doesn't work. He doesn't have that yet. 

 

So most of what he wants he can't admit to. Can't ask, can't say, can barely fucking _think_ about. So he has to wait until the choice is almost gone, until he's falling anyway. Wait till then to admit that what he wants is lie still and be touched so he can fucking remember he knows where reality is. Wants his head to stop hurting, Steve's fingers in his hair, wants Steve to talk - read, babble, fuck he doesn't _care_ \- _before_ he falls apart, so he can _skip_ falling apart and mostly fucking falls apart anyway because he has to wait. 

Or to admit that what he wants is to be here, Steve over him, inside him, body covering his and holding him down, pinning him to the bed. Steve's breath on his neck, mouth on his skin, right hand stroking the space on his left shoulder between skin and metal and left hooked under his right shoulder, bent to brace against the bed. Steve's breath coming with words he barely hears as words, that just go to his spine and the back of his skull and down his throat to his lungs, like air. 

Barely hears as words but knows, knows the words are praise and promise and plea and _he wants this_. Just be here, have this, not have to think not have to choose just get to be, have this, let this be. 

Not always, not only, but now God yes, _now_ , this is all he wants. 

He digs fingers into the back of Steve's neck - right hand, left hand above his head, fingers twisting in cloth because right now he doesn't trust himself to remember where the line is, where bodies break. He touches open-mouthed kisses to Steve's temple, his jaw, and tastes salt-sweat and skin and every breath is full of the way Steve smells. Pulls Steve as close as he can, deep as he can, kisses him as hard as he can, like if he could let Steve crawl under his skin everything would be okay. Everything would be okay again. 

(Everything was never okay. He knows that. Right now he doesn't fucking care.) 

Steve pushes himself up on his right hand, a little, so he can hook his other arm under Bucky's leg. Bucky lets his head fall back and closes his eyes as Steve moves into him hard and bends his head again. Until his breath is over Bucky's carotid, is by his temple again and Steve's breathing _yours_ and _want you_ and _always, God, always_ against his ear. And yes _always_ , this _always_ , maybe, please, _fuck_. 

Bucky pulls Steve down to him, against him, while Steve comes and whatever words Steve might have said into Bucky's skin fall apart into wordless noise and Bucky breathes it like water to the drowning, like he doesn't want to claw for air - his, here, and _yes_ , and he wants this, and its his, and here everything is safe, home, right. Everything he can't fucking say (and God, regret, Steve, he would, he would say it, _I would I'm sorry_ -) twisted into this. 

Steve shifts his weight one more time to get a hand between them; Bucky kisses him hard again while Steve's hand moves on his cock until _he_ comes, arching up against Steve's hip. 

Working his free hand under the small of Bucky's back, Steve relaxes over him, on him. He nuzzles the side of Bucky's neck and Bucky lets his left hand fall to rest on Steve's bent leg, near the top of his thigh, while his right arm cradles Steve's head. He keeps his eyes closed. For now. Nothing he needs to see: better, so much better just to lie here, feel Steve's ribs and abdomen move against his with each breath, skin against skin and sweat and come and everything, everything for a few fucking minutes okay. Just for now. 

God, Christ, for a few minutes more. 

Steve kisses the curve of his neck. "You need to move?" he asks, quiet. He moves the arm under Bucky's back up a bit, wrapping around his chest and tucking his hand up under Bucky's shoulder like that isn't a clear fucking statement that he'd rather not. And fuck, no, Christ, no, Bucky doesn't want to move, doesn't want to fucking move ever again; but trying to say it feels like he'd be trying to pull a huge fucking rock tied around his neck and his hands tied behind his back. 

Takes a minute to convince himself he doesn't have to. To let inertia of silence win and just shake his head instead. And Steve doesn't push, just says, "'kay," and works his arm free long enough to sort of half-assed tug the spare blanket over them before working it back to where it was. 

It won't last, it can't last, because reality fucking hates him, but Bucky will take this for every fucking minute it _does_ last. Every God-damned one. 

 

There turn out to be thirty-seven, until Steve moves enough to hold himself up so he can look at Bucky's face and says, "There's no way in Hell your left leg isn't completely asleep," like Bucky hasn't been steadfastly ignoring that for over fifteen minutes. 

Not that it isn't fucking starting to go numb. Not that that isn't a fucking symbol for everything, for how it doesn't actually fucking matter that he _wants_ to stay in the moments where every other fucking part of the shit-show excuse for a psyche he's stuck with isn't trying to pull him under, eventually it'll start seeping through every single wall and if he's not careful (and he knows it, he knows it _without_ testing it he doesn't fucking _want_ to test it, there can fucking be one limit in his life that he just knows he has without having to go there _fucking thank you_ ) it'll bleed into everything and there won't _be_ those moments - 

That's completely fucking besides the point. Whatever the point is. He'll figure it out later. 

"Nnnh," Bucky says, refusing for at least a second to open his eyes. "Who fucking cares. Let it die. Cut it off, my left side can match." 

"You're hilarious," Steve says, digging his thumb into Bucky's other hip. 

"I'm serious," Bucky replies, blandly, which works until Steve goes for the distraction of leaning down to kiss him again. 

He's better at stuff like that than he used to be. Manipulative little shit. 

"C'mon," Steve says. "Come have a bath with me. Before your leg _does_ fall off." 

And Bucky has to admit that as far as transitions back to the cloying slogging shit that he can't avoid having as his life, there are worse ideas.


End file.
